Breastfed babies are less likely to have eczema as teenagers, study shows

Babies whose mothers had received support to breastfeed exclusively for a sustained period from birth have a 54% lower risk of eczema at the age of 16, a new study led by researchers from King's College London, Harvard University, University of Bristol and McGill University shows.

The study, which is published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics, examined more than 13,000 Belarussian teenagers enrolled in the PROmotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT) and found a 54% reduction in cases of eczema amongst teenagers whose mothers had received support to breastfeed exclusively.

Eczema causes the skin to become itchy, dry, cracked, sore and red. It affects around one in 5 children and one in 10 adults in the developed world. The paper's lead author, Dr Carsten Flohr, whose work is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College London, said: "The WHO recommends between four and six months of exclusive breastfeeding to aid prevention of allergy and associated illnesses. Our findings add further weight to the importance of campaigns like the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), which is tackling low rates of breastfeeding globally."

The PROBIT study recruited a total of 17,046 mothers and their new-born babies between June 1996 and December 1997. Half of the maternity hospitals and paediatric clinics involved in the study provided additional support modelled on the recommendations of the WHO and United Nations Children's Fund's BFHI, while the other half continued their usual practices.

"PROBIT, the largest randomized trial ever carried out in the area of human lactation, continues to yield scientifically and clinically important information more than two decades after its inception," says Dr. Michael Kramer, from McGill's Faculty of Medicine and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), the Principal Investigator on the PROBIT study.The UK has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world. Only one in three (34%) UK-born babies have received any breast milk, compared with 49% in the United States and 71% in Norway. Only 1% of babies in the UK are exclusively breastfed to six months. While the study found that the breastfeeding promotion intervention provided protection against eczema there was no reduction in risk of asthma with 1.5% of the intervention group (108/7064) reporting asthma symptoms compared with 1.7% (110/6493) in the control group.

The paper 'The effect of an intervention to promote breastfeeding on asthma, lung function and atopic eczema at age 16 years' was published today in JAMA Pediatrics.

NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College London

Related Asthma Articles:

Insomnia prevalent in patients with asthmaA team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh has found that insomnia is highly prevalent in adults with asthma and is also associated with worse asthma control, depression and anxiety symptoms and other quality of life and health issues.

Turning off asthma attacksWorking with human immune cells in the laboratory, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have identified a critical cellular 'off' switch for the inflammatory immune response that contributes to lung-constricting asthma attacks.

Do asthma and COPD truly exist?Defining a patient's symptoms using the historical diagnostic labels of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an outdated approach to understanding an individual's condition, according to experts writing in the European Respiratory Journal today.

What Everyone Needs To Know About This Fresh Approach To Dealing With Asthma... The most brilliant minds in the fields of health, medicine and psychology have tried and failed to find the solution to Asthma. Now, a new approach based on going back to nature rather than man-made medicine is gaining ground throughout the world. This "fresh approach" was initially laughed at and thought to be a joke. But when people started to have incredible results with it the laughter stopped. Now more and more research is gradually being done on this new nutritional approach to dealing with this... View Details

Understand Asthma & Breathing Problems. Stop fighting against asthma attacks and breathing difficulties! Say "Goodbye" to breathing problems! This book will help asthma sufferers to establish natural and wholesome breathing patterns and prevent asthma attacks. It will provide you with the information you need to tame your or your child's breathing difficulties naturally by improving the function of the respiratory system. It contains comprehensive instructions on the Breathing Normalization method based on the discovery by Dr. Buteyko in 1952 in Russia. Since then, this commonly called... View Details

Free yourself of allergies and asthma once and for all with Dr. Pescatore's breakthrough program

"" Dr. Fred Pescatore's The Allergy and Asthma Cure reveals a unique and revolutionary understanding of the underlying conditions of allergy and asthma-from food triggers to the environment to nutritional deficiencies. His integrative program of both alternative and traditional treatments can dramatically improve health and vitality, safely and soundly. This book will have a prominent place in my library and I highly recommend it! ""-Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S., author of the... View Details

This book challenges conventional wisdom about the causes and treatments of asthma. Could hard-to-treat asthma be triggered by a persistent infection? Dr. David Hahn presents the scientific evidence and compelling case histories that led him to his surprising conclusion. He describes the treatment protocol he has used successfully. Find out if your asthma might be cured once and for all instead of managed. View Details

Autism is an epidemic: It has spiked 1,500 percent in the last twenty years. ADHD, asthma and allergies have also skyrocketed over the same time period. One of these conditions now strikes one in every three children in America. But there is hope. Leading medical innovator Kenneth Bock, M.D., has helped change the lives of more than a thousand children, and in this important book, with a comprehensive program that targets all four of the 4-A disorders, he offers help to children everywhere. This is the book that finally puts hope within reach.

Asthma is a collection of recent comics by John Hankiewicz. From story to story, even page to page, the book mixes a startling range of graphic and narrative styles to form a dreamlike whole.

Amateur Comics” creates a wordless lyric of body, chairs, and space. Martha Gregory” delves into the rhyming psyches of a young woman and an old man. Jazz” charts a single day through the lens of the unconscious. Also included are the visually abstract The Kimball House,” the autobiographical Westmont Is Next,” the elliptically humorous Dance” (printed in black and red),... View Details

It's a world we barely see, but it is teeming with life. In the dust of a typical house, carpet beetles, mites, silverfish, and other creatures live and die, producing new generations every few months. Mold, bacteria, and yeast lurk undetected in heating and cooling systems. Debris dispersed into the air from these organisms can cause runny noses, itchy eyes, coughing, headaches, and breathing difficulties. Some people, especially those made highly sensitive by allergies, suffer from devastating health problems and the worry that, as one such sufferer lamented, "My house is killing... View Details

The incidence of asthma is rising dramatically in the United States and across the globe. Asthma affects 17 million people in the U.S. and is the most common chronic childhood disease. If you or someone you love suffers from asthma, you know that there is no cure—however, with proper care, asthmatics can lead normal, active, and fulfilling lives. Now you can breathe easy with this plain-English guide, which clearly explains the prevention, diagnosis, symptoms, and treatment of the disease.

Asthma For Dummies will help asthma sufferers and their loved ones get a strong handle on... View Details

This revolutionary book teaches readers how to take control of their asthma safely and effectively without any side effects. The approach encompasses the Buteyko Breathing Method as well as guidance on diet, sleep, physical activity, and other lifestyle changes that can provide a natural alternative to Asthma medications.

The author was a chronic asthmatic who applied the Buteyko Breathing Method to free himself from his asthma condition. In this book, he details the Buteyko Breathing Method and provides guidance on diet, sleep, physical activity, and other lifestyle changes that can... View Details

This color illustrated children's book helps provide an emotionally safe school environment; thus allowing classmates to view children with asthma as normal kids who just happen to have asthma, at no fault of their own. This book will help children and parents discuss asthma with schoolmates and classroom teachers. Includes "Ten Tips for Teachers" and "Kids Quiz". View Details

Best Science Podcasts 2018

We have hand picked the best science podcasts for 2018. Sit back and enjoy new science podcasts updated daily from your favorite science news services and scientists.

#465 How The Nose KnowsWe've all got a nose but how does it work? Why do we like some smells and not others, and why can we all agree that some smells are good and some smells are bad, while others are dependant on personal or cultural preferences? We speak with Asifa Majid, Professor of Language, Communication and Cultural Cognition at Radboud University, about the intersection of culture, language, and smell. And we level up on our olfactory neuroscience with University of Pennsylvania Professor Jay Gottfried.